作者：Cliff Harris

你可能会经常听到“在清理完我的所有储备前，我不会购买任何东西”，“我购买了那款游戏然后意识到我已经拥有了它”以及“我购买了第一款游戏但我却并未去玩它”之类的评论。

每当你看到“促销”这一词时，你会发现其实玩家都在被玩弄，就像一架被利用的钢琴一样。这是用于从玩家身上赚钱的一种巨大的心理学技巧，并且是一件糟糕的行为，如果可以的话我们应该制止它。以下是我认为使用打折扣去向非玩家销售游戏是种糟糕的做法的原因：

sale(from habitatls)

这将毁掉游戏的发行。如果每个人都在玩最新的游戏的话这种情况便不会发生。直到首次进行50%或75%的促销时，游戏才得到关注。你并未获得“水冷却时刻”，即每个人都在谈论一款游戏。这意味着有些多人游戏的发行缺少了适当规模的玩家，公司也并未投入足够的努力去留下成员在游戏发行时进一步完善它。

这是远离基于质量的销售模式。当一款游戏正处于一天75%的促销状态，你会在购买前做多少研究呢？你是否会观看预告片？你是否会阅读任何评价？多少？承认吧，你是基于名字，logo和截图购买游戏，因为它低于5美元，不是吗？如果是这样，这便是问题所在。我们是因为突出的名字和截图购买了游戏，而不是因为它的实际质量。

让我们将权利转交给运行促销的人。如果任何人在一天内能够通过游戏出现在促销首页上而赚到5万美元，这便能让那些管理促销网页的人成为造王者。这么做是否正确？这么做是否公平？这是否是对所有人的满足感和乐趣的最大优化？或者这是否会打击到那些知道或喜欢游戏的大型门户网站的拥有者？

我们低估了游戏的价值。我们期待游戏是5美元。我们并未“投资”于游戏中，所以我们会在第一次遭遇失败，或者感到困惑或陷于其中某一环节时而选择放弃。有些游戏非常复杂，难以精通，需要花一定时间才能到达某一个点。如果我们只需要支付5美元，我们便有可能不再因为游戏太复杂而头疼，我们想要看到一些更快发展且可以随意支配的内容。

我们所玩的游戏内容不会超过10%。在我的Steam收藏夹中没有一款游戏是我真正玩完的。我总是会以全价购买一款游戏。有许多游戏我只玩了30分钟，有些甚至只玩了10分钟。它们也许都有很棒的结局，但谁在乎呢？还有好几款游戏我只尝试了一开始的关卡。然而也有一些玩家坚持玩了50个小时的游戏玩法。但是有49个小时都是在追溯之前的内容，因为游戏开发者知道90%的购买者不会坚持到游戏最后。

我不敢保证关于这点我们能做些什么。折扣和促销的确都是有效的。关于创建一个声誉而长期保持高价格的做法的确有点困难，但我想自己已经在某种程度上做到了。自从去年10月发行以来，《Democracy 3》的价格从未低于原价的50%，我们也从未计划这么做。这是很少见的。因此在游戏发行一个月后我得到了“最讨厌玩家的法西斯主义者”的称号，只因为游戏从未真正进行促销（叹气）。

我理解使用不同的价格点去适应不同玩家的做法，我理解促销作为一种具有经济效能的方法去提升整体的使用率的原因。但这意味着实用性是源自产品。我们不再销售产品，我们也不再销售折扣。如此玩家的脑内啡上升将只是因为捡到了便宜，而不再因为玩游戏所获得的乐趣。这是件多悲哀的事啊。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The negative effects of big game discounts

By Cliff Harris

You hear the comment quite often ‘I’m not buying anything till I clear my backlog’ and ‘I bought that game then realised I already owned it’ and ‘I bought the first one but didn’t play it, might pick this up…’

This is nuts. Gamers are being played, played like a fucking piano, every time you see the word SALE. This is a big psychology trick that is being used to siphon money from gamers, and it’s a bad thing, and if we can (and I think we probably can’t) we should stop it. Here is why I think using deep discounting to sell games to non-players is bad:

It kills off game launches. That thing where everyone plays the latest game doesn’t happen so much now. The game is ignored until the first 50% or 75% off sale. You don’t get that ‘water cooler moment’ where everyone talks about a game. That means some multiplayer games launch without the proper size of players, and the company isn’t making enough to retain support staff to patch and improve the game at launch.

It’s a step away from selling based on quality. When a game is in a one-day 75% off sale, how much research do you do before buying? Did you watch a lets play? The trailer? Did you read any reviews? How many? Admit it, you have bought a game based on the name, a logo and a screenshot because it was under $5 haven’t you? If so, this is a problem. We are rewarding games with cool names & screenshots over actual quality.

We are handing power to people who run sales. If anyone can sell $50,000 in a day with any game just by being on the front page of a sale, then that makes the people who manage the sale webpage the kingmakers. Is that right? Is it fair? Is it an optimum maximisation of everyone’s satisfaction and enjoyment? Or is it more likely making hits out of games who are well known (or liked) by the owners of the big portals?

We devalue games. We expect games to be $5. We don’t ‘invest’ money in them, so we give up and discard them at the first time we lose, or when we get confused or stuck. Some games are complex, tricky, hard to master, take a while to get to the point at which it all makes sense. We are increasingly likely to not bother with complex games, if we paid $5, we want something quick and disposable.

We don’t play beyond the first 10%. There is not a single game in my Steam collection I’ve finished. Not ONE. And I almost always buy full price. There are many games I’ve played for under 30 minutes, some for under ten minutes. They may have wonderful endings, who cares? I have another X games sat there I can experience the opening level of instead. And yet… gamers insist on 50 hours of gameplay. Cue 49 hours of back-tracking and filler, because game devs KNOW that 90%+ of buyers will never see the game ending anyway…

I’m not sure there is anything we can do about it. Discounts work. Sales work. There is some mileage in building a reputation for maintaining high prices for longer, I think I’ve built that up to some extent. Democracy 3 has never been lower than 50% since release back in October, with no immediate plans to re-do that 50% off or go lower. This is quite rare though. I got called a ‘fascist who hates gamers’ one month after release because the game was not on sale. *Sigh*.

I understand that varied price points to suit different gamers is good, I understand the reasons for sales being economically efficient ways to maximise global utility. But this implies utility is derived from the product. We are no longer selling products, we are selling discounts. The endorphin rush is now from getting a bargain, not the fun of actually *playing* the game. This is bad.(source:develop-online)